10 Years After `L` Fell, Cta Still Polices Itself

Tom Boyle, the Chicago Transit Authority`s safety manager, was about to leave his office for the day on Feb. 4, 1977, when the phone rang. A train

``was on the ground,`` the CTA`s control center told him.

In railroad parlance, the phrase usually means ``derailment.`` But to Boyle`s disbelief, this was much more than a simple derailment.

A northbound train rounding a bend on the Loop elevated structure at Wabash Avenue and Lake Street struck the rear of a parked Ravenswood train. Four cars of the northbound train left the tracks and plunged 20 feet to the street below. It was the worst accident in CTA history, killing 11 people and injuring 183.

``I went out there, and there was the head car laying in the street,``

Boyle said. ``I had never seen anything like it.``

Now, 10 years later, safety on the CTA`s rail system remains an issue. There have been other accidents, charges of faulty maintenance and, in the last year, a series of fires on cars.

The CTA insists that its system is safe, its equipment in good condition and its motormen properly trained.

But there is no independent standard to define proper maintenance and operating procedures and, more critically, no outside agency to ensure that the CTA`s 500,000 daily rail riders are protected.

The lack of supervision exists despite a federal law that gives the Urban Mass Transportation Administration, a division of the U.S. Department of Transportation, watchdog powers over public transit systems.

The statute grants the agency the authority to investigate safety conditions and the power to withhold subsidies from any transit authority that fails to correct problems. But the agency refuses to flex its muscle despite urgings from the National Transportation Safety Board, an independent federal office that investigates accidents and makes recommendations to prevent recurrences.

``It really comes down to a question of resources,`` said Ivan Scott, an agency spokesman in Washington. ``In our grants we make it incumbent on the grantee to maintain safety, but we have neither the dollars nor manpower to take an active regulatory role.``

In a letter written last October to Jim Burnett, chairman of the safety board, Transportation Secretary Elizabeth Dole asserted that ``rail safety is a local responsibility that is best handled by the state and local decision-makers who are accountable for the safe, effective and efficient operation of rail transit systems.``

Agencies in New York and California have taken on the burden of monitoring their states` transit safety, but other states have not followed suit. Illinois provides no oversight for the CTA.

The agency does compile annual figures on accidents, provided voluntarily by the nation`s 13 public transit authorities that operate ``heavy`` rail systems such as the CTA`s.

The statistics show that in 1985, the most recent year for which figures are available, the CTA had .10 accidents per 1 million car miles traveled. The rate was identical to those reported by Cleveland and Miami, slightly under the high of .12 for Philadelphia and greater than rates reported by systems in such cities as Washington and San Francisco.

But transit industry executives contend that the agency`s report is plagued by inconsistencies and questionable data. The New York system, by far the nation`s largest, did not submit 1985 statistics.

CTA safety manager Boyle contends that the only accurate measure of safety is to compare current experience with the past.

By this measure the CTA has done well. Figures show a fairly consistent downward trend over the last decade. Total accidents--ranging from train collisions to accidents involving passengers who have fallen while boarding or alighting--declined to 288 in 1986 from 448 in 1977.

But it is questionable whether even these statistics give a true picture of safety. If a passenger calls to report an injury in a fall, for example, it is tallied automatically as an accident. There is no verification.

That means that the accident rate in any given year depends largely on the number of people who claim an injury.

Although there is no national standard for train maintenance, the CTA appears to rank with its peers if frequency of inspection is used as a benchmark. The Chicago authority inspects and services its 1,200 cars every 6,000 miles (every eight or nine weeks of service for the typical car) or every three months, whichever comes first.

The New York City Transit Authority brings its 6,100 cars in at 7,500-mile intervals; Cleveland inspects every 4,000 miles; Atlanta every 45 days;

and San Francisco every 500 hours, or roughly every 18,000 miles, based on the system`s average speed of 36 miles an hour.